


Dark and Dreaming

by politicalmamaduck



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gothic, Gothic Literature, Implied miscarriage, Jynnic - Freeform, Mild Blood, Northern England, wuthering heights inspiration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8879305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/pseuds/politicalmamaduck
Summary: Alone in her family's manor home in the north, Jyn Erso dreams of a man in a white cape.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [winterofherdiscontent](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=winterofherdiscontent).



> Written for winterofherdiscontent for the 2016 Jynnic Secret Santa exchange!

The wind swept over the moors, knocking the trees against the great manor house and creating eerie shadows in the moonlight. The trees had taken to the wet soil hundreds of years before and rooted themselves there, standing as sentinels against the ghostly landscape. Or so Jyn thought.

She crumpled her bedsheets in her hand, too anxious to sleep. The moon leered down at her, the trees shaking their heads as if to say “What have you done, silly girl?”

_If you continue to fight, what will you become?_

Another voice from another world echoed in Jyn’s mind. A ghost, a shadow. _An old friend. One who deserved better_.

She reached up and stroked her velvet bed curtains, feeling the soft crimson velvet in her hands. Tactile, sensual. Touching was a grounding in reality. Feeling the fabric, its weight and texture, silenced the voices in her head. Brought her back down to the here and now.

Her chamber was icy cold; winter had come to the north.

Her father was away once more, and was not expected to return home until the new year; Jyn did not want to waste precious firewood while he was gone and the embers in most of the home’s fireplaces had gone cold.

It would be a quiet holiday with both her parents gone. Jyn was unafraid of being in the old house alone, with no one but the scant household staff and her own shadows for company. The wind rustling through the heath and the wet and clouded moors had become her closest friends and constant companions.

It was safer for her here, her father had insisted. The air was healthier than that in London, the food fresher and more wholesome. The few servants her father trusted to employ had remarked upon the increased color in Jyn’s cheeks, and how she was finally putting on some weight over the past few months. Upon their first removal to the north, she had been confined mostly to her bedchamber, feeling queasy as soon as she awakened in the morning and barely able to take more than a cup of tea throughout the day. Anxious nerves, the doctor had said. After all that had happened, it could hardly be surprising.

Once she finally began to feel better, there was plenty of land on which to stretch the legs or ride on horseback, and the house itself was spacious, with a wonderful library and rooms for her father to conduct his research. After the infamy and scandal between her father and his former friends and colleagues regarding his previous subject of study, he had chosen to remove their family to the north over the summer and focus his scientific inquiries in a different light.

Jyn got out of bed, her feet lightly touching the cold floorboards. She tiptoed over to the large window looking out over the front of the house to the moors, and stood there, sighing.

Another sleepless night.

The wind continued to shake the trees around the house, and Jyn suddenly realized she too was shaking.

She crossed the short distance across the floor back to her bed, taking refuge under her warm woolen blankets and thick coverlet. Pulling them over her head, she willed herself to go back to sleep and not think about, or even consider, the possibility of a figure in white stalking across the moors, a pale sliver in the darkness. She did not see him, nor would she. He was gone, and so was she, and the shared world they had inhabited was no more.

…

Jyn awoke the next morning to a weak winter sunshine, scarcely considering her thoughts of the night before. She took breakfast in the drawing room, with only the older lady housemaid bringing her tea and informing her of a letter from her father for company. “My darling Jyn,” the letter began, stark in the black ink against the creamy page. Her father’s spindly writing stuck out at all angles and made the letters that much more prominent. His new topic of research had begun well and was off to an earnest start; however her father himself had taken cold in the past week and was battling a cough. He confirmed that he would remain in London through the holidays, and that he had not had any unfortunate entanglements with his prior colleagues and acquaintances. All, for the most part, seemed to be well.

After breakfast, Jyn adjourned to her study with haste to pen a reply to her father. She encouraged him to seek out the best apothecaries and physicians in London for his cold, and entreated him to send her wishes and best regards to her mother as well. She assured him that all was passing well at the manor house, and that she was enjoying the simplicity of life in the north. Signing her name to the bottom, she affixed one of her father’s seals and asked the manservant of the house to take the letter to town to post with all haste when he went about his errands.

Thinking of her father and smiling, Jyn took a cup of tea and headed to the library to continue her studies. Her father had insisted upon none but the best tutors and governesses when Jyn was growing up, and she had always adapted herself well to study. Her father’s deep and abiding adoration of scientific exploration she had not; however, she conducted herself admirably in the studies of literatures and languages. The ancient Celtic poetry in particular she found diverting, even more so on the wild heath strewn moors. It was easy to imagine roving bands of warriors fighting the Danes and the Normans here in the north.

Of a sudden, she looked up from her book and saw a medieval battlefield out the window, blood seeping into the moors and steaming ghosts rising from the heath. The clang of swords and armor rang out, and a valiant warrior in a white cape, astride a great chestnut destrier, raised his greatsword for the kill…

The stairs creaking as the manservant came upstairs to inform Jyn he had posted her letter startled her out of her reverie--her vision, her daydream. The hours had passed without her notice, and the sun was fading into red. She stood up and looked out the window once more, and imagined looking rather into a pair of crystalline blue eyes than a windowpane.

After dinner Jyn took once more to the library, taking refuge in _The Bride of Lammermoor_. After applying her mind to great works of antiquity during the day, at night she allowed herself the indulgence of novels. Tonight, however, she found herself unable to focus on the plot she had previously enjoyed immensely. She kept finding herself getting up and looking out upon the moors, imagining a white shadow stalking across them towards her. If she closed her eyes, she would see him before her, could feel the grip of his hands pressing into her upper arms.

Before she retired for the night, she paced up and down through the halls, seeing shadows in every corner. She could hear her heart pounding in her chest, her stomach roiling. Her memories tore at her, as if catching her in the midst of a tempest. _Her friends, her father’s colleagues, betrayed; her mother, heartbroken; her father, in denial_.  

She had fought, and she had lost her battle.

_Who were you really fighting, Jyn?_ the voices in her mind continued to ask her. Accuse her. _You weren’t fighting for your father. You were fighting for yourself. Against yourself. You gave in to your darkest, deepest desires. You lost, silly girl. You were a child playing at dice._

Her eyes continued to drift into the shadows, seeking for a differentiation between shades of grey. The world was spinning around her, whirling her as if she were in an elaborate waltz with a spectral partner. The darkness enveloped her, and overtook her as she collapsed into bed.

  
Jyn Erso awoke once more, her white nightgown trailing behind her, splattered with blood. It dripped from her hands as she looked down at them, and left behind red imprints from her feet on the floor in the shadows. The world was black, so dark and deep in that moment, and she was white, her skin shining in the pale moonlight, her body falling to the floor. As she crumpled downward, her knees giving out from underneath her, she could smell traces of well-worn leather gloves and fine brandy, could feel hands pressing hers, ghosting over her skin. His lips brushed underneath her ear, murmuring something only she could hear, only she would ever hear. Her eyes closed, seeing only a man in a white cape before her.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and constructive feedback always appreciated! Many thanks to ReyloTrashCompactor for her beta work.


End file.
